Kelley Worthington

ECON 1740
E-Portfolio
March 2, 2016

Free or Equal
1. If the government gives everybody the same freedom to work and reap the
rewards, some will do better than others. The result will be Equality of
Opportunity, but not Equality of Outcome.

2. Immigrants who arrived in the late-1800s/early-1900s found that America was

truly a land of opportunity. Describe the factors these immigrants encountered
which helped them thrive.
The immigrants came over here already with a lot of hope and drive to
make their move worth it. Some of the biggest factors that allowed them
to thrive was the lack of restrictions and regulations and rules on their
opportunities. It was truly a free market.

3. Professor Friedman referred to Hong Kong as the freest market in the world.
Summarize how he described the free market.
Hong Kong was never introduced to policies, no tariffs, no regulations and
no government intervention. Because of this Hong Kong was able to
evolve naturally. They were welcome to go into whatever industry they
wanted and trade with whoever they wanted. Because of this if they fail,
they bear the cost. However, if they succeed they get the benefit. This
created an atmosphere of incentive with induced them to work harder, to
adjust to changes, and to save, therefore producing a miracle of where
Hong Kong is now compared to where it started. From 1950 to 2000 the
GDP increased more than 10 times. Freidman said that one of the main
reasons for their rapidly rising in standard of living was due to the
absence of tariffs or restrictions on trade.

4. Human and political freedom has never existed (and cannot exist) without a large
measure of Economic Freedom. Those of us who have been so fortunate as to
have been born in a free society tend to take freedom for granted, to regard it as
the natural state of mankind. It is not. It is a rare and precious thing.

5. Explain how the lead pencil & the smart phone are examples of invisible hands.
To make your life better, you must better the lives of others.
The lead pencil and the smart phone are both tools of communication.
Both equally sought after in their time of age. The lead pencil was created
by a variety of different materials. The wood for the pencil needed to be
cut down from a tree. To cut it down you needed a saw, to have a saw you
needed steel, to get steel you needed iron ore. All from different places
but working together to make one tool useful by the masses as a whole.
Same goes for a smart phone. For example, the display was created in
Japan, the camera in Vietnam, the memory from Korea, the battery from
China, etc. Multiple continents had to cooperate together to make this
phone. This promoted productive efficiency and fostered harmony and
peace among the people of the world to offer us ALL something better.
However, it indeed takes that risk of failure to possibly be able to succeed.

6. Explain the concept of creative destruction as described in the Free or Equal

video.
The concept that most economists refer to as creative destructions
means the constant renewal of the economy. If we want to increase our
wealth and opportunity, we have to stop doing old things in old ways and
start innovating things in new ways. Some will adapt and adjust and
therefore succeed, that is the creative part. Some however will fail and
that is the destructive part. They compared this with the creation of cell
phones. Cell phones have helped people all over the world grow
economically tremendously. Pretty much everyone you know now has a
cell phone (approximately 1.7 phones per person). This was an awesome
economic and technological jump for us. However, it did put millions of
people out of jobs with the destruction of the Land Line business. Tit for
Tat if you will.

7. The idea that the economic race should be so arranged that everybody ends at
the finish line at the same time, rather than that everyone starts at the beginning
line at the same time. This concept raises a very serious problem for freedom. It is
clearly in conflict with it, since it requires that the freedom of some be restricted,
in order to provide the greater benefits of others.

8. Our economic system gave us Henry Ford, Thomas Alva Edison, Bill Gates & other
very successful entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs all went in with their eyes
open, knew what they were doing & win or lose, we (society) benefited from their
willingness to take a chance.

If we did not allow these successful entrepreneurs to become incredibly rich, we

would be more equal. But, would we be better off? If entrepreneurs did not think
that a possible reward for all the sacrifices they made, all their hard work, all
the risks they took is a lot of wealth, then they might do something else instead.
In that case, we would not have the goods, services and technologies (they created)
that make our lives better.

9. As Milton Friedman said, The society that puts equality before freedom will end
up with neither.
The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a greater measure
of both.

10. Professor Friedman compares the concept of equality of opportunity to a race

where everyone begins at the starting line at the same time. In contrast, equality of
outcome guarantees that everyone finishes at the same time. Today, equality of
outcome is referred to as fair shares for all.
If we applied the fair shares for all concept in this class, all students would receive
an average grade of C. This would be accomplished by taking points away from
students earning As and Bs to give to students earning Ds and Es. Distributing
points equally would result in fair grades for all.
1. Would you approve of this method in calculating your final grade? Why or why
not?
2. Would this differ from fair shares for all economically? Why or why not?
The term fair shares for all doesnt really mean fair for ALL. It should be
more interpreted as fair shares for SOME. It doesnt grant equal amounts
of rewards to everyone based on whether or not they deserve it. This has
nothing to do with race, religion, status, etc. And I think thats where a lot
of people try to find loops holes to hold their argument. That things are
not fair because of external factors, when really it should be based on
solely how hard you work for it. If you earned it or not. Its basically not
giving anyone the drive to want to do their best to earn that first place
medal, its a participation ribbon. Its encouraging a mediocre effort.

I would not be okay with receiving an equally distributed grade of C.

When I started this class, I was terrified because of a few reasons, one
being that it was a condensed course, and the other being history is not
my strongest suit and having to pace myself and use my own form of time
management and discipline was very daunting to me. Im sure I wasnt the
only one who felt that way. So lets say I was a lazier student who gave up
that quickly, the idea of a promised C would sound pretty awesome, I
wouldnt have to do anything and I was still guaranteed to pass. However,
I am not that student. I have worked extremely hard to get the best score
I could on every quiz. The ability to have 2 attempts on every quiz
motivated me that if I missed one on my first attempt I could take it again
and do even better, by absorbing my knowledge and adjusting to where I
was lacking and perform the best of my ability. I dont take school lightly
and dont plan to. I am not satisfied with Cs get degrees. I am satisfied
when I am a top performer and I have no one else to thank but myself and
my dedication to things. How is that right that I put in so much effort and
would get slammed from a beautiful A with 98.77% down to a C with a 60%
or something along those lines. I know that some of the argument is that
maybe students didnt have the same advantages in my upbringing that I
had. I understand that, but I still understand that if you want something
bad enough, those students who feel they are at a disadvantage will excel
however they can. Find a tutor, read extra books, study EXTRA hard. They
have all the chance opportunity in the world to excel academically as
anyone else.
Someone like me, I work hard for what I have. I havent been gifted very
good scores on assignments, or even been gifted in my upbringing so
why should someone who doesnt work as hard be gifted the same? I know
people who come from families of doctors and engineers, who have been
surrounded by intense knowledge their whole life and have the chance to
attend the best schools in the country, who chose not to put the hard work
that is needed. Exactly the same next door, a student coming from a
family of addicts and unemployment who work their rears off to rise above
that and do even better for themselves because they realize THEY HAVE
THAT POWER.

Reflective Writing
I think the first Learning Outcome that this assignment helped me achieve was
developing knowledge and skills to be civically engaged. Economics was a foreign
thing to me before I took this class. This assignment in particular was extremely
interesting to me. It explained the theories of Milton Friedman in ways that I was
able to grasp and truly understand. I feel like I could have a casual conversation
about the meaning of what economic freedom is now after watching this. The idea

that stood out to me the most by the way of it being taught was what exactly
creative destruction was. Breaking it down into parts of the development of cell
phones benefited everyone tremendously, while hurting others that were still a part
of business and jobs that aided to the need of Land Lines. I feel like I already
understood the concept of this but I didnt ever think to correlate it with economics,
let alone creative destruction.
The other learning outcome I feel it provided was the ability to think critically and
creatively. I feel like I could apply this lesson to much more than economics. The
whole time watching this movie I just kept comparing how I wanted to teach my
child lessons in life. Not just in business but for anything in life, school, sports, work,
dating, anything. It teaches you to look at things from a different angle to connect
things in a way that will click with you. As a mother, I want my child the be the best
that he can be, and in order for him to be the best that HE is, he needs to have the
freedom to discover and learn lessons. Kind of like not having rules and regulations
on these economically free countries. If they Succeed they get to benefit from it,
and if they fail they get to reap the effects of that as well. They dont have
government, or helicopter parents intervening at every moment trying to band aid
their short comings by saying its okay, here we will even everything out. It
motivates everyone, workers or in this case my child to do better next time, to
adjust to adapt and make it work for them and make it work again. I found it very
interesting how this lesson definitely gave me something to think about in the
parenting world and how I respond to the growth I see in my child and what I can do
to make it be a successful growing experience.